Therapeutic Fate
by TRDancer
Summary: Bella lives at a therapy center. What happens when Edward moves into the center as well? Entry for Bronzehairedgirl620's Epic T-rated One-shot Contest in memory of Daddy's Little Cannibal.
1. Chapter 1

**The Epic T-rated Contest**  
1. NO lemons.  
2. It must be rated T.  
3. It has to have a line or reference to a cannibal.  
4. It has to have a line or reference to a fireman.  
5. Cannon pairings.  
6. Has to be a **one-shot**, but you're allowed to continue it once the contest is finished.  
7. Must copy and paste these rules to the top of your entry. Two entries per person, collaborations acceptable.

**Well, here's my entry for the contest. I hope you like it! :D**

**Dedicated to Daddy's Little Cannibal. **

* * *

_**BPOV**_

"Mmm, you like that, don't you?"

"BELLA!!" I heard someone yell from outside the closet. _Emmett._ The door slid open, and I groaned. "Bella, what are you doing in here?"

"Talking to Snuggles," I replied, getting up and brushing fluff off of my clothes.

"Bella," Emmett said gently, "Snuggles doesn't exist." I rolled my eyes.

"You've told me this before," I said.

"I know, but you don't seem to believe it." I shook my head.

"That's because I don't believe it. She's real, I know she is."

"Oh yeah? Where is she now? Why don't I or any of the other staff ever see her?"

I sighed. We had this discussion every day on the way to group therapy. "You don't see her because she's a spirit, Emmett. And right now, she's following us, listening to the conversation and probably feeling very unenthused about the fact that you think she doesn't exist." Emmett looked at my disbelievingly, and I could tell he was refraining from looking behind us to make a point.

"She doesn't exist."

"Why am I even here?" I asked him.

"You know why," he replied matter-of-factly as he opened the door for me. I walked in, sighing, and sat down.

"No, I do not know why I am here. I am not a cannibal who runs around cutting off random people's heads on Greyhound buses," I quipped.

Emmett shook his head and went to sit in his customary spot at the front of the circle. I sat back to survey the group members.

There was drooling guy, balloon guy, emo guy, emo girl, other emo girl, other emo boy… okay, there were lots of emo kids. Then there was old guy, and of course, cannibal guy in his shackles. I was sitting as far away from him as was possible. Seriously, the guy was insane. Unlike me. That was it for the regular members. Temps always arrive later. And Alice arrives later, too. She's always doing her hair and the worker assigned to her is too much of a suck to make her stop.

Just then the door slammed open and a whole whack—okay, two—temps walked in looking scared. I snorted. Emmett shot me a look, which I shot right back at him.

The temps sat down, and the guard shut the door. Not two seconds after he did, there was a knock. I smirked—probably Alice and her lackey, Jasper.

The door swung open to reveal… not Alice. And not Jasper.

Nope, it swung open to reveal an insanely hot fireman.

How did I know he was a fireman? Alice told me. Yeah, Alice knows things. You definitely don't bet against her, and this situation was no exception. She had told me about a fireman that looked just like the man at the door coming to group therapy a week ago. He would also be staying here.

What befuddled me was why she had left out the part where he was fucking gorgeous. He was beyond description, so I'm not even going to try. Just know that he is mindblowingly irresistible.

He walked awkwardly over to the circle, scanning the seats.

"Ah… Edward," Emmett said after a glance at his clipboard. "Just sit anywhere." I wanted to curse Emmett at that moment. Couldn't he have pointed out one of the seats next to me? I wondered idly if Snuggles would curse him for me.

But it didn't matter. Edward came and sat next to me with a glowing smile. I smiled back. Then Alice crashed into room, racing right at me and crashing into the seat on my other side.

"Oh my god, Bella! Guess what I saw! It was…" she trailed off with her mouth hanging wide open. She was staring right over my shoulder… at Edward.

"Yeah, Alice? What was it?" I asked, trying to distract her.

"Oh never mind. I'll tell you later," she said devilishly. Ugh, typical Alice. All secrets and blabber about fashion designers. I knew more about Imitation of Christ—her latest craze—than I wanted to. Ever. But you don't stop an Alice tangent, no more than you bet against her.

"Alright, Alice, since you're so chipper today, why don't you start the introductions?" Emmett asked. I rolled my eyes. Alice started the intros every day for this exact reason. It was just a fact.

"HiI'mAliceBrandonI'm17andIgetvisionssomyparentsdecidedIwascrazyandsentmehere," Alice strung all her words together but still managed to be understandable, all while she examined her nail polish for chips. I smirked. It was a talent us oldies at the center got. Well, Alice and I were the only ones that actually did it, but I was sure there were some others who could do it if they wanted to. Alice had been here for even longer than I had, ever since she was nine. I had been here since I was ten, and coincidentally, we had the same birthday.

"Thanks, Alice," Emmett said. "Now, Bella?" I sighed.

"I'mBellaSwanI'm17andIhaveaspiritcatandmadethemistakeoftellingpeopleabouthersonowI'mhere," I said. Emmett rolled his eyes and gestured to Edward.

"Um, I'm Edward Cullen, I'm 19… and I guess I'm here because my boss told me to be here," he said. I was intrigued, even though it was a typical thing for new people to say who sent them here. But since I knew Edward was a fireman, I wondered why his boss would ever send him to therapy.

I mused over this question through all the rest of the introductions, staring at Edward the whole time. Surprisingly I didn't get caught, which was a plus. He was very intent on staring at something on the wall across the circle, and more than once I tried to follow his gaze to whatever it was and saw only blank white wall. I shrugged it off; maybe he was seeing something otherworldly. I wouldn't judge him.

"Okay, guys and girls, I'm Emmett, director of this _fine_ establishment. Who wants to delve deeper into their intro today? C'mon people, volunteer or be picked, doesn't matter to me." I willed Edward to volunteer. _C'mon, buddy, just put up your hand and tell us some deep, dark secrets. Please?_ Somehow, he got it and his hand went up halfway.

"Edward!" Emmett exclaimed, surprised. No one ever volunteered. It was an extreme rarity.

Edward coughed. "Erm…"

"Why did your boss send you here, Edward?" Emmett prompted.

Edward closed his eyes. "Well… I kind of rolled my car… and then it burst into flame… and he saved me, but when he was dragging me out of the car I was mumbling some 'weird shit' according to him, and he figured I should get 'help'." Edward looked sort of sick. I frowned, worried about him. Emmett seemed to notice this too, and chose not to ask any more questions. Instead, he turned on me.

"Bella, who were you talking to in the closet? And why were you saying… that?" I scowled at Emmett. He had such a freaking dirty mind, probably from the constant exposure to Rosalie, and the things they did behind certain closed doors—wait, what am I talking about? The doors aren't certain at all; they do it _everywhere_.

"I was talking to Snuggles, and I said that because she seemed to like the scratch behind the ears I was giving her," I stated, glaring at Emmett.

"Okay, Bella. Where does Snuggles come from?" I sighed.

"She comes from the spirit world, obviously," I told him and the group at large.

"Where is this spirit world?" _Oh my GOD, Emmett. Think of some new questions!_

"Snuggles prefers not to tell the entire human race where to find spirits, so she hasn't told me. Yet." I gave Snuggles a glare. She was sitting in the middle of the circle, looking around at everyone, doing her little spirit analysis', I was sure. She glared back at me.

Edward snorted. I turned to look at him as Emmett asked: "Do you have something to comment on, Edward?"

Edward shook his head. "Oh, not about anything important. I could have sworn that cat in the middle of the circle gave Bella a glare, though," he pointed out.

I could almost hear all of the regular's—even drooling guy's and cannibal dude's—mouths drop open. It took me a couple seconds to realize my jaw had dropped too.

Edward looked around. "What? Can't you guys see it? It's right there!" He pointed at Snuggles. I managed to snap my jaw back up and began to laugh. Everyone else was still too shocked to do anything, and the temps just looked a bit scared. Edward turned and glared at me, though there was an unexplainable smile on his face. "What in the living fires of hell are you laughing at?"

"Oh, nothing," I choked out.

Snuggles jumped up in Edward's lap and started purring.

~*~

The rest of the group therapy meeting went awkwardly, at least until drooling guy fell asleep on one of balloon guy's balloons, subsequently popping it and making cannibal guy fly into a rage. His rages were always entertaining.

"Ma jään teda alatiseks armastama," Alice said to me, linking her arm through mine as we left the room.

"Oi, kallis Alice, kuidas sa saad seda mitte teha?" I replied, laughing. Alice and I had a _lot_ of free time on our hands, so we spent it learning languages and then speaking them to people just to confuse them.

"Eesti keel? Huvitav..." someone behind us said. I whipped around to see Edward.

"Jah, meile meeldivad meie keeletunnid," Alice told him.

"Where did you learn to speak Estonian?" I wondered out loud, switching back to English. Edward shrugged.

"Oh, some of my relatives speak Estonian. We'd go to parties with them since my mother spoke Estonian, but I didn't understand what anyone was saying, so one of the girls, Anni, taught me how," he explained. I nodded and let my gaze drift down to Snuggles, asleep in Edward's arms. I smiled. Snuggles must like having someone other than me to hang out with—or rather, annoy half to death.

"Liking the company?" I asked, gesturing to Snuggles. He nodded and Alice squinted her eyes hard at Edward's arms, as if willing herself to see… something. She did, but it wasn't what she was hoping for. Her eyes glazed over and she lost her balance, falling smack onto the couch in the "recreational" room, or rather, "the room of deathly day to day boredom". I winced; Alice was lucky that couch was there.

Alice gracefully sat up and settled into the couch. I sat down next to her and asked what she had seen. She smiled her devil smile for the 50 millionth time—one day, it was going to get stuck; I was just waiting for it to happen.

"You'll see," she said and then picked up the TV remote. She turned it on to reveal… the Teletubbies. Yes, the only channel the Center got was a kid's show channel. See what I mean about this place being torture? Some days I think that having boiling tar poured over me and then rolling in feathers would be better entertainment than this hellhole.

"Hey, Bella?" Edward asked. I looked up at him. "Will you talk to me… in private?" I shrugged and nodded assent, getting up and following him to a secluded corner. I glanced back to see Alice smirking her satisfaction. She saw me looking and mouthed: _'That's it!'_

Ah, so she'd seen Edward and me talking. Interesting.

I gestured to the teeny little plastic chairs positioned around a teeny little kid's coloring table. We both sat awkwardly, but it was better than standing awkwardly.

"So, Edward, what's up?" Snuggles jumped up on the table between us.

"I just wondered how you saw… Snuggles," he said. I shrugged.

"She's a spirit and she lets me—and you, now—see her. I don't know why," I told him truthfully. Snuggles seemed to add her agreement with a flick of the tail.

"How do you know she's a spirit?" Edward asked, leaning on the table. I tried my hardest not to get annoyed by the questions—it wasn't too terribly hard, considering Edward was the one asking them.

"She told me."

"She talks?" I nodded.

"Yes, it's sort of echo-y in my head, but I hear her," I said. "She doesn't talk whenever we're around people, though."

"Oh… would she talk to me?" I shrugged. Then a weird look crossed Edward's face.

"Oh. My. Gosh," he said when the look had passed.

"What?"

"Snuggles just talked to me."

"Really? What did she say?"

"Oh, not much." He avoided my question. I nearly groaned. How could he not share such a thing?

_"Hush, child." _Snuggles' voice came into my head.

"You hush," I growled at her under my breath. She cocked her head, and then began scratching the back of her ear. I sighed and put my face into my hands.

_**Three Days Later**_

I was sitting in my closet talking to Snuggles. She was angry at me because I wasn't out in the recreational room talking to Edward like, according to Snuggles, I should be.

"And why exactly is it necessary for me to spend so much time with him?" I asked Snuggles for the fifth time. I didn't see why I had to spend every waking moment with him—not that I didn't want to. I already spent all the time after group therapy and all the meals with him. Edward had actually _asked_ me to not bother him in the mornings and I didn't know why Snuggles wasn't aware of that. The little devil cat could read my mind, for heaven's sake.

_"As I have said, it is not smart to delay that which is fate."_

I balled my hands into fists and sighed. "_What_ is our fate? Why won't you tell me?" Snuggles merely cocked her ear towards the closet door.

_"Edward is in the recreational room right now. Go to him,"_ Snuggles insisted. I sighed and obeyed.

In the rec room, Edward lounging on the couch watching Madeleine. I snickered and perched on the couch's arm just in time to quote along with the show.

"'We love our bread, we love our butter, but most of all, we love each other!" I crowed. Edward began to laugh.

"You can quote Madeleine?" he asked, obviously making fun of me.

"Um, if you haven't noticed, this is the only channel. And sometimes I get desperate," I told him sternly, though I was only joking.

He kept laughing though, giving me only one option. I pushed him off of the couch and took his place.

"Hey!" he protested from the floor, sitting up and running a hand through his hair. I giggled.

"You were hogging the couch. It's not fair to others who may want to watch TV," I scolded him. He laughed again and got up. He pushed my legs out of the way and sat down next to me, casually putting an arm on the couch behind my shoulders.

"Bella..." His voice had lost most of it's humour.

"Yes?"

"Can I tell you something?" he asked hesitantly.

I nodded. "Sure, Edward, anything."

I stared at Edward expectantly. Finally, after all these days, some answers!

_**EPOV**_

Why was I here?

I mean, obviously I'm here because somehow the fire chief decided it was possible to fire firefighters, which it's not really. But that obviously doesn't matter to him. So it was this or losing my job.

But this so-called therapy isn't helping me one whit. There's nothing about me to help. So I saw a cat in the middle of the road and swerved. It turned out the cat was a "spirit cat" as Bella called it, but that wasn't of consequence. There was _nothing_ wrong with me.

I wanted to tell Bella about it. I had wanted to since I learned why she was here. But what if she judged me? It was an irrational fear, I know, but I couldn't help it.

"You know what?" Bella asked after a minute or two of my silence. "I don't really want to know. You obviously aren't comfortable telling me about whatever this is yet." My heart lifted at her words. Did this mean she cared about me after only three days? Any other girl I had ever met would badger me until I told them about all my "problems".

We sat in comfortable silence, just staring at the TV. Madeleine had ended and now Barney was on.

"Cock-a-doodle-DOOOOOOO!"

A man ran through the room, passing in front of us and then circling around behind the couch and back out the door, his last syllable fading down the hallway. I started laughing uncontrollably.

"What... was.... th-that?" I managed to choke out through my laughter. Bella was laughing a long with me, but she managed to calm down enough to say:

"That's Rooster Man, as I like to call him. He thinks he's a rooster, and what you just heard is basically all he ever does."

I stopped laughing and suddenly blurted out: "Why did you let me not tell you?"

Bella looked surprised. "I did it because it was obvious you didn't _want_ to tell me."

I almost laughed again. "Bella, I wanted to tell you, but I was afraid you'd judge me."

"What? I'd never judge you. I mean, look at me. I see a spirit cat!" She gestured at Snuggles, who was sitting on the ground next to the table. I chuckled a bit before getting serious again.

"Well, so do I, and I also—" Bella cut me off before I could say anything more.

"Keep your secrets, Edward. Really, they make you just that much more mysterious." She leaned closer to me, so close I could feel her breath on my face. I realized that I had been unconsciously leaning towards her as well.

"And you like mysterious people, do you?" I teased, but it came out more sensually than I meant it to. She nodded, the movement barely noticeable. "Well, if it makes you feel any better... I do too."

"Do you consider me mysterious?" she asked.

I nodded. "I will never understand you. It makes you quite appealing," I told her. Her face moved even closer to mine. She must have been only a millimetre away. I couldn't resist her any longer.

I closed the last distance between us, pressing my lips to hers. It was a quick kiss, but it said so much that words could not.

_**BPOV**_

I pulled away regretfully.

"You know, patients aren't supposed to interact with each other like this," I told him teasingly. He frowned.

"Do I look like I care?" he asked me. I shook my head, laughing. I glanced out at the thankfully empty rec room. Then I realized it was just a bit _too_ empty.

"Snuggles is gone," I said, surprised. Edward looked out at the room, too.

"I wonder where she went," he mused. I frowned; Snuggles never left me alone. Why did she choose this moment to do so?

_"Fate has been sealed."_

Snuggles' voice echoed in my head, and it was then I knew. The fate Snuggles had been talking about for the past three days was Edward and I being together. That must have been the reason we were the only two that could see her; she was bringing us together. I smiled and moved around the table to sit on Edward's lap. I wrapped my arms around him and buried my head into his chest.

"It doesn't matter. We're together now," I told him. My brain was too muddled to make sense of anything, so I wasn't sure if it even went with the conversation we had been having before.

I felt Edward bury his face into my hair and hold me closer. "Yes," he murmured. "We're together."

* * *

**Okay, there it is! **

**Hope you liked it, and leave a review, please! :D**

**The translations for the Estonian:**

**"Ma jään teda alatiseks armastama." - "I will always love him" **

**"Oi, kallis Alice, kuidas sa saad seda mitte teha?" - "Oh, dear Alice, how could you not?" **

**"Eesti keel? Huvitav..." - "Estonian? Interesting."**

**"Jah, meile meeldivad meie keeletunnid." - "Yes, we like our language lessons."**


	2. Voting Info!

Voting for the Epic T-rated Contest has begun!

http://www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net/u/1421467/

Here's how it works:

Round one: June 22nd-26th. All entries will be included here.

Round two: June 29th-July 3rd. The top half (30-40 entries) from the first  
round will be included here.

Round three: July 6th-10th. The top half (20-30 entries) from the second  
round will be included here, and the top three winners will be determined.

Go! Vote! (Possibly for me?)!


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